Following a deadly earthquake that leveled or compromised several buildings in Tainan on Feb. 6, the Taipei City Government yesterday announced plans to step up urban renewal efforts, including tests to assess the safety of old buildings.
At a city policy meeting yesterday, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) instructed deputy mayors Teng Chia-chi (鄧家基) and Charles Lin (林欽榮) to head a meeting with officials at the Taipei Department of Urban Development to list out problems they observed in buildings in Tainan that are also present in Taipei, and work out solutions within a month.
The order came one day after reports that the city had not allocated any funds for “old building checkups” this year, sparking concern among Taipei residents in view of the recent earthquake.
Taipei Construction Management Office Director Chen Huang-cheng (陳煌城) said that the checkups would likely be resumed if his agency asked Ko to tap into the city’s second reserve fund.
A total of 490 apartment buildings and housing complexes across the city had benefited from the checkups since their implementation in 2013, but the number of applicants decreased sharply last year, Hung said.
This was likely due to homeowners sparring over the costs to refurbish old buildings, Hung said.
Even though the majority of buildings checked were found to have some issues, it is very difficult to have all homeowners agree on one solution for overhauling a building, he added.
As a result, house prices fell as the issues were not addressed, which discouraged others from signing up for the checkups, he said.
He said that Ko expects officials to ensure a smoother transition from the checkups to subsequent refurbishment and rehousing efforts in the context of urban renewal.
Work is also under way to identify buildings in Taipei that are threatened by soil liquefaction — a major contributing factor behind buildings slanting or sinking into the ground during the recent earthquake — so that reinforcement work, such as pumping concrete or chemicals into the soil to increase its hardness, can be carried out, he said.
Soil liquefaction occurs when sand content and groundwater levels in soil are high, causing it to become saturated and lose strength, he said.
With the renewed interest in the checkups, the integration of these strategies would be a more efficient way to ensure building safety, he said.
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